People dressed as mermaids and mermen take part in the group swim during the MerMagic Convention at the Freedom Aquatic & Fitness Center in Manassas, Virginia on March 4, 2023. The event bills itself as the “World's Largest Mermaid Convention”. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso/AFP Photo)

A female jaguar named Ti, by the NGO Jaguar ID, bites an alligator at Encontro das Aguas State Park, in the Pantanal, the largest wetland in the world, in Pocone, Mato Grosso, Brazil, on October 10, 2024. (Photo by Sergio Moraes/Reuters)

The Fuel Girls with their fire and pyro performance on stage in London on September 20, 2025. The Big London Tattoo Show, the UK's largest tattoo convention, is in full swing at ExCeL London, transforming the venue into a bold celebration of tattoo artistry and alternative culture. (Phoot by Imageplotter/Alamy Live News)

A student is assisted by teachers after she fell ill while marching in a parade celebrating Saint Peter's day in Lima, Peru, Monday, June 29, 2015. During the feast day of the Catholic saint, who is the patron saint of fishermen, coastal communities pay homage to St. Peter, whose statue is paraded to the sea and petitions are made to keep their vessels and all who work on them safe. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)

Thorsten Mowes has a more intimate knowledge of the worlds most famous monuments than perhaps anyone else on the planet – because hes spent his entire career cleaning them. As a cultural cleaning expert with nearly 25 years experience, he has been commissioned to make wonders all over the world shine like new – from the London Eye to Christ the Redeemer. The places he has been to, stood on top of, or even hung halfway down include Mount Rushmore and the Space Needle in America, the London Eye, the Statue of Christ in Brazil and the Forbidden City in China. Here: A man cleans a part of Mount Rushmore. (Photo by Caters News Agency)

Te Matatini Kapa Haka Aotearoa perform the Haka at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the Royal Mile on August 14, 2014 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The largest performing arts festival in the world, this years festival hosts more than 3,000 shows in nearly 300 venues across the city. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)